My conspiracy-minded friends keep pointing stuff out and saying “See? See?!?” If the illustration above were on a web site or pamphlet warning of the global UN gun grab, some would think it was over the top and excitable. But wait. The graphic is from a UN page about <gasp!> civilian possession of weapons. I’ve reproduced the page below in case the page should go away. Click on the illustration to see the live page.
The Knox Report
From the Firearms Coalition
Book Review: After You Shoot: Your gun’s hot. The perp’s not, Now What?
By Chris Knox
During a typical state-mandated defensive firearms class there comes an hour – usually during that sleepy time after lunch – where the instructor gives some obligatory advice on what to do should you ever be forced to use the skills you’re learning. Generally the advice comes down to two points:
· Call 911.
· Don’t say anything.
The reason you call 911 is to demonstrate your human concern and compassion for the dirtbag whose chest you just ventilated as he threatened you or your family with death or grievous injury, and so that you can get police officers on-site to investigate a homicide or physical assault – an act that you just carried out. So as a potential felony defendant, you are now expected (if not strictly legally required) to call the police and speak into the police recorder, ever keeping in your adrenalin-charged mind that “anything you say will be used against you.”
The Knox Update
From the Firearms Coalition
By Jeff Knox
(Manassas, VA, 22 November 2010) President Obama has named yet another anti-rights extremist to a high government position – this time to a position directly overseeing, interpreting, and enforcing the nation’s gun control laws. Andrew Traver, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has been named to become the next Director of the troubled agency.
Traver, who has risen through the ranks at ATF over a 23-year career, is reputed to be well-liked by his peers and subordinates on a personal level, but not particularly respected for his effectiveness or management skills. The Traver appointment is seen as another example of President Obama’s hostility towards guns and gun owners, as Traver has a long history of opposition to individual rights and support for government restrictions on firearms.
The Knox Update
From the Firearms Coalition
Haley Barbour is a Coward
By Jeff Knox
Haley Barbour is an astute politician with aspirations beyond the Governor’s Mansion in Mississippi. He has been very active in the internal workings of the Republican Party for decades and is often named as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. As a career politician, Barbour is careful to avoid anything which might damage his political future. You will not find his name on the membership roles of “extremist” or “radical” organizations. You will not catch him golfing at any all-white country clubs. And you will not find bribe money in his kitchen freezer. Neither will you find any criminals, released from prison by Governor Barbour, out terrorizing the countryside.
Embarrassing criminal recidivism will never haunt Governor Barbour’s political career because Governor Barbour has a firm policy of refusing to “interfere” with the justice system.
The Knox Update
From the Firearms Coalition
Mid-Term Elections – Victory & Challenge
By Jeff Knox
(Manassas, VA, November 9, 2010) The mid-term elections were a big win for gun rights and therefore a big win for liberty and the Republic. Gun rights represent liberty in its most personal form and individual liberty is what made this nation great. Therefore, what’s good for gun rights is good for the nation. To each of the millions of Tea Party Patriots and Constitutional Conservatives who helped beat back the anti-constitutional agenda this year, GunVoters say, “Welcome to the party pal.” We’ve been fighting this war for decades.
As the nation moves forward from the November 2 rejection of the Obama, Reid, Pelosi socialist/globalist vision, gun rights will continue to play an important role – directly or indirectly – and this is an excellent opportunity for supporters of individual rights to press our advantage. The Second Amendment and “gun control” was a back burner issue in the recent elections, but the gun issue was and remains significant. The right of the People to keep and bear arms disturbs the ruling class like no other, making support for the Second Amendment the “miner’s canary” of the Constitution. It’s been that way for over a century and that role has not changed.
In the coming months there will be debate, argument, and votes in Congress about taxes, spending, health care, corporate regulation, ear-marks, and all manner of other complex and confusing issues. The politicians will do their best to convolute those issues beyond comprehension. At the same time, there will be some proposals for minor shifts in the way the federal government deals with firearms and firearms owners. Amid all of the confusion, GunVoters will remain clear because we have our own established and trusted information sources and, since we know that politicians who work to circumvent the Second Amendment can pretty reliable be counted on to work against other provisions of the Constitution, we are clear about just who the enemy is and we will continue to lead the fight for liberty and the Constitution. Continue reading Election Analysis
The Knox Report
From the Firearms Coalition
First Doesn’t Apply to Second in Phoenix
By Chris & Jeff Knox
(Phoenix, AZ, November 01, 2010) The City of Phoenix, Arizona apparently doesn’t think the First Amendment protections of free speech do not apply to speech related to the Second Amendment. The City recently tore down a number paid advertisements which encouraged firearms safety training. The move came after the signs, sponsored by a coalition of firearms trainers and other responsible gun owners, had been up in area bus shelters for a little more than a week. The outrageous order to tear down the signs was attributed to a Assistant City Attorney Ted Mariscal who claimed that the messages on the signs did not meet the city’s criteria for public service announcements – even though the messages were commercial advertising, not public service announcements.
Our friend Alan Korwin, the force behind GunLaws.com and the Gun Owner’s Guide book series, is also a key player in a new project called TrainMeAZ.com. The project is a coalition of members of the Arizona firearms training industry, rights activists, and concerned citizens. The focus of TrainMeAZ.com is to honor the state’s firearms heritage by encouraging gun owners, prospective gun owners, and other interested persons to get proper training in the use of arms, to make sure that the kids they contact – and who might come into contact with guns – also receive appropriate training, and to provide an easy means of finding quality training services. Continue reading Phoenix Pulls Training Ads
The Knox Report
From the Firearms Coalition
Hope for Goldilocks Election
Not too much. Not too little. Just Right.
By Jeff Knox
(Manhattan Kansas, October 18, 2010) While there is still some jockeying in the polls over a few seats in the coming congressional elections, the broad outcome keeps coming back to expectations of a closely divided Congress with Democrats maintaining a slim majority in the Senate and Republicans taking a slight majority in the House. While such a result will be a disappointment to Republican activists seeking control of both houses, a limited victory and a gridlocked Congress is probably much better strategically for conservatives in the long run than tenuous control of the House and Senate. I contend that the likelihood of extensive conservative gains in 2012 will actually be diminished if Republicans gain control of both houses this year.
Before Erik Erickson at RedState.com blows a gasket let me explain my reasoning. If Republicans take control of both houses this year they will be expected to “do something,” but the political reality is that, while Barack Obama wields the veto pen and RINOs remain in office, little can be accomplished beyond blocking more damage to the Constitution. That will be reported as “Gridlock” and Republicans will be blamed for it whether they control both houses or not. If they do win a slim majority in both houses they will not have enough votes to get any more done, just a little more control of the process such as naming committee chairs and controlling floor agendas. Most importantly, control of both houses would also mean blame and recriminations from their own base for failing to accomplish anything a serious value. When you throw in a handful of RINO’s to effectively negate the slim majority on anything important the Republicans get double the blame. Continue reading Election Hopes
The Knox Report
From the Firearms Coalition
ATF Shoots Own Foot – While in Mouth!
By Jeff Knox
(Manhatan, KS, 15 October 2010) New documents have come to light showing that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) was behind the recent State department decision to renege on an arms sale agreement with South Korea. The Republic of Korea has some 800,000 military surplus M1 rifles and carbines which they would like to sell to US importers as part of a plan to upgrade their military arms. The guns qualify as “Curios & Relics” under US law and are completely legal for importation and sale here, but since they were originally given to the ROK by the US government there is a requirement that the US Department of State approve of any plan to dispose of them. The Obama State Department, headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had originally approved the ROK plan to sell the guns to US importers over a 10-year period, but they reversed that decision a short time later citing concerns that the firearms posed a threat to public safety.
What has been missing from this story until recently is the rationale for the “threat to public safety” statement. The newly uncovered documents, which are posted at www.FirearmsCoalition.org, show that it was the ATF which raised objections to the deal. In a report titled “Effect of Granting Retransfer Authority to the Republic of Korea for M1 Garand and M1 Carbine Rifles,” ATF spells out their concerns. First they suggest that approving the deal would set a precedent and open the floodgates to millions of similar firearms in military warehouses around the world. They also insert the idea that if the M1s are allowed in, that M1911 pistols would also be included in future import requests. It is this potential deluge of US made, military collectables that ATF says “poses a threat to public safety in the US.” Continue reading Korean M1 Mess
The Knox Report
From the Firearms Coalition
Soft-Grading Politicians
By Jeff Knox
(Manassas, VA, October 11, 2010) In every election season the gun rights movement renews a running battle as various experts and activists argue over candidate grades and endorsements. Since our movement is dominated by conservative Republicans, many of our people get upset when NRA or other groups give high grades or endorsements to liberal Democrats, regardless of voting records. This year Republican activists outside the rights movement have been exerting a lot of pressure trying to force gun groups to endorse only Republicans. There are some very compelling arguments for weighting grades based on party affiliation since most members of Congress try to be loyal to their party and will “bend” their principles when the party demands it. The fact that all but one of the Democrat members of the Senate, including several avowedly pro-Second Amendment senators, voted to confirm Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court in spite of their demonstrated hostility toward the Second Amendment, demonstrates how party politics can outweigh a politicians personal “convictions.” But it is hardly a winning strategy to abandon an incumbent politician who has worked for the cause and reliably voted as asked 90% of the time in favor of a newcomer who hews a more conservative line, but who is statistically unlikely to unseat the friendly incumbent. Such is the conundrum of grading politicians. Continue reading Making the Grade
The Economist published my letter. Always fun getting a letter published.
SIR – You quite accurately identified the failure of the rule of law in Mexico along with the failed drug-policies in the United States as root issues of the violence. But you seemed to inject as an afterthought the article of faith that America’s “lax gun laws” make weapons readily available in Mexico.
It is a leap of logic to assume that tightening gun regulations would restrict gun ownership. Drug prohibition has not made drugs any less available (indeed, any teenager can tell you that it is easier to obtain weed than beer). The demonstrated failure of drug prohibition should not lead one to expect better of a gun prohibition.
Chris Knox
Phoenix
The article:
http://www.economist.com/node/17251726
Oct 14th 2010
THERE have been gunfights outside the American school and a big private university. The mayors of two suburbs have been murdered. And a grenade has been thrown at Saturday evening strollers in a square, injuring 12. All this has happened since August not in Kabul or Baghdad but in Monterrey in northern Mexico (see article). The latest battleground in a multilateral war between drug-trafficking gangs and the authorities, Monterrey is not a dusty outpost. It is one of the biggest industrial cities of North America, a couple of hours’ drive from Texas and home to some of Mexico’s leading companies.
The maelstrom of drug-related violence that is engulfing Mexico has produced exaggerated, sometimes xenophobic, alarm in parts of the United States. The response in Mexico City has, until recently, been defensive denial.
Both reactions are wrong. The violence, in which at least 28,000 people have been killed since 2006, reflects a double failure of public policy: decades of neglect of the basic institutions of the rule of law in Mexico, and a failed approach to drug consumption (plus lax gun laws) in the United States. These mistakes have helped to create the world’s most powerful organised-crime syndicates. Reforms in both countries could help tame them.
Take Mexico first. For much of the long rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party until 2000, the goal of policing was political control rather than crime prevention or detection, and the judiciary acted as a rubber stamp. In these conditions the drug gangs thrived. With increasing urgency the past three Mexican presidents have tried to tackle the mobsters, but have found they lacked the tools for the job. Thus, on taking over as president in 2006, Felipe Calderón turned to the army as a stopgap, sending thousands of troops onto the streets of northern cities. Only now, and with painful slowness, are the elements of a broader strategy falling into place. The new federal police force is growing, but it remains too small. Belatedly, the government has realised that it needs to pursue more active social policies to ensure that young men do not see the drug business as their only career option.
Perhaps the best news is that the mayhem in Monterrey has at last forced Mexico’s politicians and business leaders to face up to the gravity of the threat. Mr Calderón sent a constitutional amendment to Congress this month that would consolidate more than 1,600 local police bodies into 32 reformed and strengthened state forces. It now stands a decent chance of being swiftly approved. Even then, Mexico’s long to-do list includes regaining control of local prisons and local courts.
In all this Mexico is not getting the right kind of help from the United States. Weak law enforcement in Mexico has helped the drug gangs to grow, but their power owes everything to proximity to the world’s largest retail market for illegal drugs. Recent American administrations have at least moved on from the finger-pointing of the past to an acceptance of shared responsibility. But the results are patchy. The Mérida Initiative, a $1.4 billion anti-drug programme for Mexico, is lazily modelled on Plan Colombia. It includes a lot of helicopters and hardware of the kind Colombia needed to fight FARC narcoguerrillas, when what Mexico really needs is far more support with police training and intelligence-gathering.
Mexico would be even better served if the United States renewed a ban on the sale of assault weapons that lapsed in 2004. Sadly, this looks unlikely to happen. Yet since 2006 alone, Mexican authorities have seized 55,000 of these weapons of war. That is enough to equip many NATO armies—and most were bought legally in American gunshops.
So permissive when it comes to lethal weapons, the United States remains steadfast in its commitment to the prohibition of drugs, in the face of all the evidence that this policy fails to curb their consumption while creating vast profits for organised crime. It is welcome that California is now debating before a referendum on November 2nd, whether to legalise marijuana (see article). This newspaper would vote for the proposition, because we believe that drug addiction, like alcoholism and tobacco consumption, is properly a matter of public health rather than the criminal law.
If California votes in favour of legalisation, Mexico would be wise to follow suit (the bottom would anyway fall out of its marijuana business). The drug gangs would still be left with more lucrative cocaine and methamphetamines. But it would become easier to defeat them. And Mexicans should make no mistake: they must be defeated. The idea of going back to a tacit bargain that tolerates organised crime, favoured by some in Mexico, is inimical to the rule of law, and thus to democracy and a free society. The sooner Mexico turns its new-found sense of urgency into a more effective national policing and law-enforcement strategy the better.
